D&D 5E Party flight at 5th? Druid summoned giant vultures

[5ekyu]

Well let's see shall we, we'll break it down:
Combat gains don't matter. The entire point of the challenge rating system is that monsters of equal challenge pose roughly equivalent threats. That's not me dismissing anything, that's me acknowledging what the system is for.

Darkvision or Blindsight don't matter unless the beast can communicate with you. "You enter the vault when suddenly the door slams closed, trapping you in darkness." "I summon [beast with blindsight]. What do I see?" "The [beast with blindsight] looks around, unnerved at being trapped." No information gained. At best it might react audibly to a threat it can detect.

Let's say you want to track a scent. You have a sample of the scent to start with? You'll need one. You sure your target went by land? They'll need to off. Etc.

As for carry capacity. I scoff, scoff at that. Unless you're within one hour of civilisation, using Conjure Animals to carry stuff just delays the problem by the hour, or until your concentration breaks. Whereas you can just hire hirelings to carry stuff for you. It costs, what, 1gp/day?

i would suggest you look beyond a few cases where you can skew these as useless traits and be a little more creative with what kinds of solutions you see this spell offering up for what kinds of problems.

Really, it may be an eye opener.
Then again, maybe not, really does depend on your games and the kinds of situations that come up and how few they are.

 

[Reynard]

.If your Gm is sharking you in the desert as you suggested - the way he handles they conjure animals spell is just the tip of the iceberg.

If you are going to continue to intentionally selectively read and then misrepresent what I write, along with being argumentative, I don't see much point in trying to discuss this.

 

[5ekyu]

There's only one troll here, and that's the one expanding the meaning of player agency. And you can find them by looking in a mirror.

Well since my definition of player agency excludes the one where PA requires someone be able to pick with certainty the results of a specific spell at a specific level - i think you are confused with what the word "expanding" means.

But thats fine.

Clearly no more progress to be made on this between us.

Enjoy your games.

 

[Yunru]

i would suggest you look beyond a few cases where you can skew these as useless traits and be a little more creative with what kinds of solutions you see this spell offering up for what kinds of problems.

On the contrary, as you made the claim, maybe you should give some examples where these are of use, rather than just claim they are. You lose points if they're niche cases or outclassed by a lower level spell.

 

[Yunru]

Well since my definition of player agency excludes the one where PA requires someone be able to pick with certainty the results of a specific spell at a specific level - i think you are confused with what the word "expanding" means.

But thats fine.

Clearly no more progress to be made on this between us.

Enjoy your games.

Yes, I think you're right there. No more progress can be made. It boggles my mind that any player would pick a spell that basically reads:
Spell Name
You don't know what this spell will do, but it does something.

 

[iserith]

They're probably going to be seen flying in on birds, so they won't be able to come in secretly. That's a tradeoff.

And if the locations they avoided have something useful, they're gonna miss out on that. This could just be sweet loot, but there might be codes to help them enter quietly, or even a secret passage that bypasses even more than flying in could.

Including this sort of stuff means that the players flying in on vultures are both gaining an advantage, and missing out. This makes their choices even more meaningful, and prevents any one choice from being the bezt.

This, plus if you're using standard XP, [MENTION=6678200]fil512[/MENTION], they're passing up whatever they might earn along the way. If you're not using standard XP, maybe now is the time to revisit that policy.

 

[5ekyu]

If you are going to continue to intentionally selectively read and then misrepresent what I write, along with being argumentative, I don't see much point in trying to discuss this.

You say "if" and since i am not doing those - then by all means continue if you have something more.

maybe i will respond, maybe not - no promises tho.

 

[5ekyu]

Yes, I think you're right there. No more progress can be made. It boggles my mind that any player would pick a spell that basically reads:
Spell Name
You don't know what this spell will do, but it does something.

it says a lot that thats how you apparently feel this discussion of Conjure Animals without complete selection of specific creatures equates to anything like the thing you just listed.

You make my point for me. Thanks!!! I could not have portrayed another's position that extreme without coming close to myself seeing it being an attack or gross misrepresentation. But hey, self-inflict and its not on me.

Anybody who sees conjure animals without complete player control of specific animals as even remotely in the ballpark of "You don't know what this spell will do, but it does something." - we play massively different games with very little common ground.

 

[Yunru]

You're funny. But that's exactly what it is. It's not like the Wild Sorcerer's Wild Surge, it's literally "You only have a vague idea of what this will do."

Would you take a spell that said "Rays of fire erupt from your Palm and attack some creature that you don't decide. Make an attack roll for each beam, which deal 3d6 damage."?

The is no precedence. There is no similarities. There are no spells that have a completely random effect where you don't even know what the outcomes may be.

 

[pming]

Hiya!

So my 5th level Druid wants to use her summon animals spell to summon giant vultures to carry the party wherever they want to go.

Party flight changes a campaign a lot. And 5th level seems low level for party flight to me. How do you recommend I handle this?

What I do is ask "Why does the PLAYER want to do this?". I don't care what the characters 'reasoning' for it is...that's almost irreverent. It's the reasoning of the player that matters. Is the player trying to "game the system" and do an end-run around the 'rules' in order to try and create a temporary "I win" button? If so...it would end...poorly...for the whole party. If, however, the player is wanting to do this in some desperate attempt to pull their bacon out of the fire, then I'd let it go no muss, no fuss.

Think of it this way. If Lord of the Rings was an rpg session, and the player of Gandalf said at the beginning "Oh, hey, I'll just summon some giant eagles and fly Frodo and the ring to Mt.Doom. Poof! We win!"...then...no...that trip would 'end poorly' for the eagles, Gandalf and Frodo. In that case the Player is obviously trying to "game the system"...and they wouldn't be fooling anybody by claiming "Well, Gandalf is really old and wise, so he would totally come up with this idea". I'd call shenanigans on that in a hot second! ...However... at the end of the story, Gandalf's player say "Oh! Wait! I'll summon the Giant Eagles and get them to fly to Mt.Doom to save Frodo and Sam from certain death!"...that is not 'gaming the system'. The player is doing that out a genuine concern for his fellow players PC's. That's good story and that's good play (YMMV, of course).

So...The Druid. Doing it to "game the system", or doing it for dramatic story-driven purpose? That should determine if you allow or not.

But be consistent. If you allow "anything goes", stick with it...even if a player comes up with something that completely destroyed two weeks of adventure writing in the space of five minutes of play. If you let the group know that you won't let such "shenanigans" go on, stick with that. And just for the record, we have a 'thing' in our group where someone can call "Shenanigans" ONCE per session. This gives the players info on some of the 'behind the scenes' stuff going on that is causing whatever is going on in game (e.g., "Why?!? How would he even KNOW who we are, let alone that we stowed away on the ship? I call Shenanigans!"...wherein I would tell them "That scruffy cat you befriended on the ship? Yeah, it was the familiar of an evil wizard working for the bad guy. They've been spying on you for two months now...").

In my game, PLAYER reasoning can trump "character reasoning".

^_^

Paul L. Ming